Peso Exchange Rates and the Taxi Mafia

[DjDiverDan]

Since all these people probably have smartphones in their pocket, the statement just baffles me. Yes, moving a decimal point over one is easy; but if you can't divide by 12 (or 14, or 16, or whatever)- let the calculator do it.

I guess seeing things like this just releases the crotchety old codger in me - just the price of having been born before 1955, and having gone through school without the benefit of smart phones, or even hand held electronic calculators. Was it inevitable that Smart Phones produced Dumb People? Or just lazy ones?

When I was in elementary school, the whole class spent what seemed like hours drilling on math, reciting multiplication tables until we could see them in our sleep, doing division in our heads, adding strings of numbers. Doing math in your head doesn't require the ability of a "Rainman" savant, it only requires practice and repetition. But now, it has become almost a point of pride to be able to say "I'm not good at math. I'll just use my phone." How long will it be before we are all saying "I'm not good at walking. I'll just use my Segway."? It's your BRAIN, for Christ's sake, the thing that makes you unique! Use it or lose it!

Thus endeth the Daily Rant. Thanks for listening.

 

[ggunn]

I guess seeing things like this just releases the crotchety old codger in me - just the price of having been born before 1955, and having gone through school without the benefit of smart phones, or even hand held electronic calculators. Was it inevitable that Smart Phones produced Dumb People? Or just lazy ones?

When I was in elementary school, the whole class spent what seemed like hours drilling on math, reciting multiplication tables until we could see them in our sleep, doing division in our heads, adding strings of numbers. Doing math in your head doesn't require the ability of a "Rainman" savant, it only requires practice and repetition. But now, it has become almost a point of pride to be able to say "I'm not good at math. I'll just use my phone." How long will it be before we are all saying "I'm not good at walking. I'll just use my Segway."? It's your BRAIN, for Christ's sake, the thing that makes you unique! Use it or lose it!

Thus endeth the Daily Rant. Thanks for listening.

I feel your pain, like the time I went into a store and bought something that cost, I dunno, a buck forty seven, and paid with a five dollar bill. The guy behind the counter rang it up and the register told him what my change would be, but then I said, "Wait a minute, here's forty seven cents." The guy looked at me like I had asked him to solve a third order differential equation.

 

[mediumone]

I feel your pain, like the time I went into a store and bought something that cost, I dunno, a buck forty seven, and paid with a five dollar bill. The guy behind the counter rang it up and the register told him what my change would be, but then I said, "Wait a minute, here's forty seven cents." The guy looked at me like I had asked him to solve a third order differential equation.

If you really want to throw them for a loop, give them the 7 cents, or even better, just the 2 cents. As entertaining as it might be, probably not in your best interest though: you'd still be standing there waiting for him to figure it out.

 

[Skittl1321]

Thus endeth the Daily Rant. Thanks for listening.

When I was in school, we had calculators, but we were told daily "you won't always have a calculator in your pocket". Well, that just isn't true. The reality today is that you will, and I think the more important lesson is to learn to use the tools you have. I think there are more valuable things that can be done in school than spending hours doing rote memorization drills. The question is whether the school takes the time to teach higher level problem solving, too often, the answer is no.

And I can do math in my head, I'm just slower. But I know enough to get a good estimate on an exchange rate, to make change, or more importantly to know when the calculator is wrong!


My problem is that people with calculators STILL don't know how to use them. That to me is very very sad.

But now, it has become almost a point of pride to be able to say "I'm not good at math. I'll just use my phone."

If they can use their phone correctly, they are ahead of a lot of people.

I hear people all the time laugh and say "Math is hard" or "I just can't do math."
Imagine if we took as much pride in saying "Oh, reading is so hard!", "Yep, I'm illiterate!"

 

[mmmbelows]

Can you answer these questions without a calculator, your phone or pencil and paper? If you can you're probably over 30 years old.

1) How many ounces in a pound?
2) What is 10% of 750?
3) What is 1/4 plus 1/4 plus 1/4?
4) Convert 3/4 to a decimal
5) What is the square root of 16?

Those are the first 5 questions on our 25 question evaluation test for summer interns. I'm embarrassed at the amount of wrong answers or the blanks youngsters leave because "they aren't good at math". It's really scary not just how little cognitive skills they have, but what is really just shocking is how easily they give up. I really feel bad for young people, some just seem to have no desire to try and struggling or work at anything, their too ready to just say they can't do something and give up. If it's even a little difficult they just shut down and want to lose themselves texting on their phone.

 

[ggunn]

When I was in school, we had calculators...

When I was in high school and during my first stint in college we had slide rules. The thing about slipsticks is they don't give you any decimal placement; 123 or 0.123, or 123,000,000, it's all the same to a slide rule. To use a slide rule you use it to give you the integers but you have to keep track of orders of magnitude yourself. Fast forward 10 years to my second collegiate metriculation. Everyone had calculators, but my earlier experience with the slide rule helped me catch keystroke errors when they happened.

In the engineering building where I took most of my classes there was a very large photo of the twisted wreckage of the Tacoma Narrows bridge lying in the bottom of the canyon. It had the caption, "MISPLACED DECIMAL POINT? NO PARTIAL CREDIT!"

 

[Skittl1321]

Can you answer these questions without a calculator, your phone or pencil and paper? If you can you're probably over 30 years old.

1) How many ounces in a pound?
2) What is 10% of 750?
3) What is 1/4 plus 1/4 plus 1/4?
4) Convert 3/4 to a decimal
5) What is the square root of 16?

I worked on a workforce test that had questions about this level; and you could use a calculator if you wanted to.
Many adults still could not pass it.


I realize I have a lot of silly math knowledge most adults don't anymore because of my career (I mean how many people need to know how to complete the square to solve a quadratic?) but seeing some of those results made me very sad.

 

[cruiser]

When I am on Cozumel I just get pesos from a trusted ATM and pay for everything in pesos rather than trying to calculate whether dollars or pesos is the better deal on every purchase. I figure that on the whole I will come out better dealing in pesos, but I don't pay a whole lot of attention to the numbers. I deal with numbers all the time when I am not on vacation; all this finagling is too much like work.

Ditto. And when I have dealt with the numbers, it was cheaper than paying in dollars.

---------- Post added August 4th, 2015 at 01:54 PM ----------

I have always liked it when there is a sign posting a really poor exchange rate like 10:1 and then being presented with a bill for say $50 USD, I would hand them a 500 peso bill in that case.

And at today's exchange rate the 500 peso bill is $30.00 US.

 

[DandyDon]

I remember my slide rule. Hated it! Wish I'd held onto it now tho. So many have never seen one I bet.

I don't expect anyone in Coz to allow 16:1. They have to do the extra work of turning my dollars into their pesos, and they don't get 16:1. That's a commercial rate. It looks like Wells Fargo is giving 15.2:1 today. 12:1 I can live with; 14:1 is nice. Yeah, it's cheaper to get your own pesos at the bank ATM and use those, but I always run out - just not early enough to want to purchase more.

Can you answer these questions without a calculator, your phone or pencil and paper? If you can you're probably over 30 years old.

1) How many ounces in a pound?
2) What is 10% of 750?
3) What is 1/4 plus 1/4 plus 1/4?
4) Convert 3/4 to a decimal
5) What is the square root of 16?

Those are the first 5 questions on our 25 question evaluation test for summer interns. I'm embarrassed at the amount of wrong answers or the blanks youngsters leave because "they aren't good at math". It's really scary not just how little cognitive skills they have, but what is really just shocking is how easily they give up. I really feel bad for young people, some just seem to have no desire to try and struggling or work at anything, their too ready to just say they can't do something and give up. If it's even a little difficult they just shut down and want to lose themselves texting on their phone.

Scary. Those look easy enough. I get into math a little deeper converting farm strength herbicides to homeowner strength. Trying to measure an appropriate amount of farm strength to add to a 96 oz jug* of water would require delicate handling. It's easier to cut the farm strength first, then use 2 oz homeowner strength to a jug to spray the yard, family cemetery plots, a nearby drainage ditch I can't get the town to clean out. My bigger fear is that my daughter and my dive bud whom I supply will just pour into a sprayer instead of measuring. 4 or 6 oz of farm strength into a gallon sprayer would be dangerous.

* I like to use RO water so I save laundry bleach jugs to haul it in from the water machine in town, and they're the 3 quart jugs now. None of this is important, no - just numbers chat.

 

[DjDiverDan]

I still have my Slide Rule - and its leather case. Is it time for me to go on Antiques Roadshow?